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ROBERT BROWNING 






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PIPPA PASSES 5 

A DRAMA. 
1841. 

I DEDICATE MY BEST INTENTIONS, IN THIS POEM, 

ADMIRINGLY TO THE AUTHOR OF "iON/' 

AFFECTIONATELY TO MR. SERGEANT TALFOURD. 

R. B. 

London: 1841. 

PERSONS. 

PiPPA. 

Ottima. 

Sebald. 

Foreign Students, 

Gottlieb. 

Schramm. 

Jules. 

Phene. 

Austrian Police. 

Bluphocks. 

LuiGi and his Mother. 

Poor Girls. 

MoNSiGNOR and his Attendants. 

INTRODUCTION. 

New Year's Day at Asolo in the Trevisan. 

Scene. — A large mean airy chamber. A girl, Pippa, 
from the Silk-mills, springing out of bed. 

Day! 

Faster and more fast, 

O'er night's brim, day boils at last: 



PIPPA PASSES. 



Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim 
Where spurting and suppressed it lay, 
For not a froth-flake touched the rim 
Of yonder gap in the solid gray 
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away; 
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled. 
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed, 
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast 
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the 
world. 

Oh, Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee, ^ 

A mite of my twelve hours' treasure, 

The least of thy gazes or glances, 

(Be they grants thou art bound to or gifts above 

measure) (? 

One of thy choices or one of thy chances, 
(Be they tasks God imposed thee or freaks at thy 

pleasure) 
— My Day, if I squander such labor or leisure. 
Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me ! 

Thy long blue solemn hours serenely flowing, 
Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and good — 
Thy fitful sunshine-minutes, coming, going. 
As if earth turned from work in gamesome mood- 
All shall be mine ! But thou must treat me not 
As prosperous ones are treated, those who live 
At hand here, and enjoy the higher lot, 
In readiness to take what thou wilt give. 
And free to let alone what thou refusest; 
For, Day, my holiday, if thou ill-usest 
Me, who am only Pippa, — old-year's sorrow. 
Cast off last night, will come again to-morrow: 



PIPPA PASSES. 



Whereas, if thou prove gentle, I shall borrow 

Sufficient strength of thee for new-year's sorrow. 

All other men and women that this earth 

Belongs to, who all days a^ike possess. 

Make general plenty cure particular dearth. 

Get more joy one way, if another, less: 

Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven 

What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven, — , 

Sole light that helps me through the yeaj", thy sun's'! 

Try now ! Take Asolo's Four Happiest Ones — 

And let thy morning rain on that superb 

Great haughty Ottima ; can rain disturb 

Her Sebald's homage? All the while thy rain 

Beats fiercest on her shrub-house window-pane, 

He will but press the closer, breathe more warm 

Against her cheek; how should she mind the storm? 

And, morning past, if mid-day shed a gloom 

O'er Jules and Phene, — what care bride and groom 

Save for their dear selves? 'T is their marriage-day; 

And while they leave church and go home their wfty» 

Hand clasping hand, within each breast would be 

Sunbeams and pleasant weather spite of thee. 

Then, for another trial, obscure thy eve 

With mist, — will Luigi and his mother grieve — 

The lady and her child, unmatched, forsooth. 

She in her age, as Luigi in his youth. 

For true content? The cheerful town, warm, close 

And safe, the sooner that thou art morose, 

Receives them. And yet once again, outbreak 

In storm at night on Monsignor, they make 

Such stir about, — whom they expect from Rome 

To visit Asolo, his brothers' home. 

And say here masses proper to release 

A soul from pain, — what storm dares hurt his peace? 



8 PIPPA PASSES. 



Calm would he pray, with his own thoughts to ward 
Thy thunder off, nor want the angels' guard. 
But Pippa — ^just one such mischance would spoil 
Her day that lightens the next twelvemonth's toil 
At wearisome silk-winding, coil on coil ! 

And here I let time slip for naught ! 
Aha, you foolhardy sunbeam, caught 
With a single splash from my ewer ! 
You that would mock the best pursuer. 
Was my basin over-deep ? 
One splash of water ruins you asleep, 

And up, up, fleet your brilliant bits 

Wheeling and counterwheeling, 
Reeling, broken beyond healing : 
Now grow together on the ceiling ! 

That will task your wits. ^ 

Whoever it was quenched fire first, hoped to see 
Morsel after morsel flee 
As merrily, as giddily ... 
Meantime, what lights my sunbeam on. 
Where settles by degrees the radiant cripple? 
Oh, is it surely blown, my martagon? 
New-blown and ruddy as St. Agnes' nipple, 
Plump as the flesh-bunch on some Turk bird's poll ! 
Be sure if corals, branching 'neath the ripple 
Of ocean, bud there, — fairies watch unroll 
Such turban-flowers ; I say, such lamps disperse 
Thick red flame through that dusk green universe I 
I am queen of thee, floweret ! 
And each fleshy blossom 
Preserve I not — (safer 
Than leaves that embower it, 
Or shells that embosom) 
— From weevil and chafer? 



PIPPA PASSES. 



Laugh through my pane then; solicit the bee; 
Gibe him, be sure ; and, in midst of thy glee, 
Love thy queen, worship me ! 

— Worship whom else? For am I not, this day, 
Whate'er I please? What shall I please to-day? 
My morn, noon, eve and night — how spend my day? 
To-morrow I must be Pippa who winds silk. 
The whole year round, to earn just bread aad milk: 
But, this one day, I have leave to go. 
And play out my fancy's fullest games ; 
I may fancy all day — and it shall be so — 
That I taste of the pleasures, am called by the names 
Of the Happiest Four in our Asolo ! 

See! Up the hill-side yonder, through the morning, 

Some one shall love me, as the world calls love : 

I am no less than Ottima, take warning ! 

The gardens, and the great stone house above. 

And other house for shrubs, all glass in front, 

Are mine; where Sebald steals, as he is wont. 

To court me, while old Luca yet reposes : 

And therefore, till the shrub-house door uncloses, 

I . . . what now ? — give abundant cause for prate 

About me — Ottima, I mean — of late, 

Too bold, too confident she '11 still face down 

The spitefullest of talkers in our town. 

How we talk in the little town below ! 

But love, love, love — there's better love, I know ! 
This foolish love was only day's first offer; 
I choose my next love to defy the scoffer : 
For do not our Bride and Bridegroom sally 
Out of Possagno church at noon? 
Their house looks over Orcana valley: 



PIPPA PASSES. 



Why should not I be the bride as soon 

As Ottima? For I saw, beside, 

Arrive last night that little bride — 

Saw, if you call it seeing her, one flash 

Of the pale snow-pure cheek and black bright tresses. 

Blacker than all except the black eyelash; 

I wonder she contrives those lids no dresses ! 

— So strict was she, the veil 

Should cover close her pale 

Pure cheeks — a bride to look at and scarce touch. 

Scarce touch, remember, Jules ! For are not such 

Used to be tended, flower-like, every feature, 

As if one's breath would fray the lily of a creature? 

A soft and easy life these ladies lead : 

Whiteness in us were wonderful indeed. 

Oh, save that brow its virgin dimness, 

Keep that foot its lady primness, 

Let those ankles never swerve 

From their exquisite reserve, 

Yet have to trip along the streets like me. 

All but naked to the knee ! 

How will she ever grant her Jules a bliss 

So startling as her real first infant kiss? 

Oh, no — not envy, this ! 

— Not envy, sure ! — for if you gave me 

Leave to take or to refuse. 

In earnest, do you think I 'd choose 

That sort of new love to enslave me? 

Mine should have lapped me round from the begin* 

ning; 
As little fear of losing it as winning: 
.Lovers grow cold, men learn to hate their wives. 
And only parents' love can last our lives. 



PIP PA PASSES. II 

At eve the Son and Mother, gentle pair. 
Commune inside our turret : what prevents 
My being Luigi? While that mossy lair 
Of lizards through the winter-time is stirred 
With each to each imparting sweet intents 
For this new-year, as brooding bird to bird — 
(For I observe of late, the evening walk 
Of Luigi and his mother, always ends 
Inside our ruined turret, where they talk,- 
Calmer than lovers, yet more kind than friends) 
— Let me be cared about, kept out of harm. 
And schemed for, safe in love as with a charm; 
Let me be Luigi ! If I only knew 
What was my mother's face — my father, too! 

Nay, if you come to that, best love of all 
Is God's ; then why not have God's love befall 
Myself as, in the palace by the Dome, 
Monsignor? — who to-night will bless the home 
Of his dead brother ; and God bless in turn 
That heart which beats, those eyes which mildly, 

burn 
With love for all men ! I, to-night at least. 
Would be that holy and beloved priest. 

Now wait ! — even I already seem to share 

In God's love: what does New-year's hymn declare J! 

What other meaning do these verses bear? 

All service ranks the same with God: 

If now, as formerly he trod 

Paradise, his presence fills 

Our earth, each only as God wills 

Can work — God's puppets, best and worst, 

Are we; there is no last nor first. 



12 PIPPA PASSES. 

Say not "a small event!" Why "small"? 
Costs it more pain that this, ye call 
A "great event" should come to pass, 
Than that? Untwine me from the mass 
Of deeds which make up life, one deed 
Power shall fall short in or exceed! 

And more of it, and more of it ! — oh yes — 

I will pass each, and see their happiness, 

And envy none — being just as great, no doubt, 

Useful to men, and dear to God, as they ! 

A pretty thing to care about 

So mightily, this single holiday ! 

But let the sun shine! Wherefore repine? 

— With thee to lead me, O Day of mine, 

Down the grass path gray with dew, 

Under the pine-wood, blind with boughs 

Where the swallow never flew 

Nor yet cicala dared carouse — 

No, dared carouse ! [She enters the street 



I.— MORNING. 

Scene, — Up the Hill-side, inside the Shrub-house. 
Luca's wife, Ottima^ and her paramour, the 
German Sebald. 
Sebald [sings]. 

Let the watching lids wink! 
Day's ablaze with eyes, think! 
Deep into the night, drink! 
Ottima. Night? Such may be your Rhineland 
nights perhaps ; 
But this blood-red beam through the shutter's chink 



PIPPA PASSES. 13 

— We call such light, the morning : let us see ! 
Mind how you grope your way, though ! How these 

tall 
Naked geraniums straggle ! Push the lattice 
Behind that frame ! — Nay, do I bid you ? — Sebald, 
It shakes the dust down on me ! Why, of course 
The slide-bolt catches. Well, are you content, 
Or must I find you something else to spoil? 
Kiss and be friends, my Sebald! Is 't full morning? 
Oh, don't speak then ! 

Sebald. Ay, thus it used to be. 

Ever your house was, I remember, shut 
Till mid-day; I observed that, as I strolled 
On mornings through the vale here ; country girls 
Were noisy, washing garments in the brook, 
Hinds drove the slow white oxen up the hills : 
But no, your house was mute, would ope no eye. 
And wisely: you were plotting one thing there. 
Nature, another outside. I looked up — 
Rough white wood shutters, rusty iron bars, 
Silent as death, blind in a flood of light. 
Oh, I remember ! — and the peasants laughed 
And said, "The old man sleeps with the young wife." 
This house was his, this chair, this window — his. 

Ottima. Ah, the clear morning! I can see St. 
Mark's ; 
That black streak is the belfry. Stop: Vincenza 
Should lie . . . there 's Padua, plain enough, that blue ! 
Look o'er my shoulder, follow my finger ! 

Sebald. Morning? 

It seems to me a night with a sun added. 
Where 's dew, where 's freshness ? That bruised plant, 

I bruised 
In getting through the lattice yestereve, 



14 PIPPA PASSES. 

Droops as it did. See, here *s my elbow's mark 
1' the dust o' the sill. 

Ottinia. Oh, shut the lattice, pray! 

Sebald. Let me lean out. I cannot scent blood here, 
Foul as the morn may be. 

There, shut the world out! 
How do you feel now, Ottima? There, curse 
The world and all outside ! Let us throw off 
This mask : how do you bear yourself ? Let's out 
With all of it. 

Ottima. Best never speak of it. 

Sebald. Best speak again and yet again of it, 
Till words cease to be more than words. "His 

blood," 
For instance — let those two words mean "His blood" 
And nothing more. Notice, I'll say them now, 
"His blood." 

Ottima. Assuredly if I repented 

The deed — 

Sebald. Repent? Who should repent, or why? 
What puts that in your head ? Did I once say 
That I repented? 

Ottima. No, I said the deed. 

Sebald. "The deed" and "the event" — just now 
it was 
"Our passion's fruit" — the devil take such cant ! 
Say, once and always, Luca was a wittol, 
I am his cut-throat, you are . . . 

Ottima. Here 's the wine; 

I brought it when we left the house above. 
And glasses too — wine of both sorts. Black? White 
then? 

Sebald. But am not I his cut-throat? What are 



PIPPA PASSES. 15 

Ottima. There trudges on his business from the 
Duomo 
Benet the Capuchin, with his brown hood 
And bare feet ; always in one place at church, 
Qose under the stone wall by the south entry. 
I used to take him for a brown cold piece 
Of the wall's self, as out of it he rose 
To let me pass — at first, I say, I used : 
Now, so has that dumb figure fastened on me, 
I rather should account the plastered wall 
A piece of him, so chilly does it strike. 
This, Sebald? 

Sehald. No, the white wine — the white wine! 
Well, Ottima, I promised no new year 
Should rise on us the ancient shameful way ; 
Nor does it rise. Pour on ! To your black eyes ! 
Do you remember last damned New Year's day? 

Ottima. You brought those foreign prints. We 
looked at them 
Over the wine and fruit. I had to scheme 
To get him from the fire. Nothing but saying 
His own set wants the proof-mark, roused him up 
To hunt them out. 

Sebald. 'Faith, he is not alive 

To fondle you before my face. 

Ottima. Do you 

Fondle me then ! Who means to take your life 
For that, my Sebald? 

Sebald. Hark you, Ottima ! 

One thing to guard against. We '11 not make much 
One of the other — that is, not make more 
Parade of warmth, childish officious coil, 
Than yesterday: as if, sweet, I supposed 
Proof upon proof were needed now, now first. 



i6 PIP PA PASSES. 

To show I love you — yes, still love you — love 

you 
In spite of Luca and what 's come to him 
— Sure sign we had him ever in our thoughts, 
White sneering old reproachful face and all ! 
We '11 even quarrel, love, at times, as if 
We still could lose each other, were not tied 
By this: conceive you? 

Ottima. Love ! 

Sebald. Not tied so sure. 

Because though I was wrought upon, have struck 
His insolence back into him — am I 
So surely yours? — therefore forever yours? 

Ottima. Lx)ve, to be wise, (one counsel pays 
another) 
Should we have — months ago, when first we loved, 
For instance that May morning we two stole 
Under the green ascent of sycamores — 
If we had come upon a thing like that 
Suddenly . . . 

Sebald. "A thing" — there again — "a thing !" 

Ottima. Then, Venus' body, had we come upon 
My husband Luca Gaddi's murdered corpse 
Within there, at his couch-foot, covered close — 
Would you have pored upon it? Why persist 
In poring now upon it? For 't is here 
As much as there in the deserted house : 
You cannot rid your eyes of it. For me. 
Now he is dead I hate him worse : I hate . . . 
Dare you stay here? I would go back and hold 
His two dead hands, and say, 'T hate you worse, 
Luca, than ..." 

Sebald. Off, off — take your hands off mine. 

*T is the hot evening — off! oh, morning is it? 



PIPPA PASSES. 17 

Ottima. There 's one thing must be done: you 
know what thing. 
Come in and help to carry. We may sleep 
Anywhere in the whole wide house to-night. 

Sebald. What would come, think you, if we let 
him lie 
Just as he is? Let him lie there until 
The angels take him ! He is turned by this 
Off from his face beside, as you will see. 

Ottima. This dusty pane might serve for looking- 
glass. 
Three, four — four gray hairs ! Is it so you said 
A plait of hair should wave across my neck? , 

No — this way. 

Sebald. Ottima, I would give your neck, 

Each splendid shoulder, both those breasts of yours, 
That this were undone ! Killing ! Kill the world 
So Luca lives again ! — ay, lives to sputter 
His fulsome dotage on you — yes, and feign 
Surprise that I return at eve to sup, 
When all the morning I was loitering here — 
Bid me despatch my business and begone. 
I would ... ' 

Ottima. See ! 

Sebald. No, I '11 finish. Do you think 

I fear to speak the bare truth once for all? 
All we have talked of, is, at bottom, fine 
To suffer; there 's a recompense in guilt; 
One must be venturous and fortunate : 
What is one young for, else ? In age we '11 sigh 
O'er the wild reckless wicked days flown over; 
Still, we have lived : the vice was in its place. 
But to have eaten Luca's bread, have worn 
His clothes, have felt his money swell my purse — 



i8 PIPPA PASSES. 

Do lovers in romances sin that way? 

Why, I was starving when I used to call 

And teach you music, starving while you plucked me 

These flowers to smell ! 

Ottima. My poor lost friend ! 

Sebald. He gave me 

Life, nothing less: what if he did reproach 
My perfidy, and threaten, and do more — 
Had he no right? What was to wonder at? 
He sat by us at table quietly : 
Why must you lean across till our cheeks touched? 
Could he do less than make pretence to strike? 
'T is not the crime's sake — I 'd commit ten crimes 
Greater, to have this crime wiped out, undone ! 
And you — O how feel you? Feel you for me? 

Ottima. Well then, I love you better now than ever, 
And best (look at me while I speak to you) — 
Best for the crime ; nor do I grieve, in truth, 
This mask, this simulated ignorance, 
This affectation of simplicity, 
Falls off our crime ; this naked crime of ours 
May not now be looked over : look it down ! 
Great? let it be great; but the joys it brought, 
Pay they or no its price? Come : they or it ! 
Speak not ! The past, would you give up the past 
Such as it is, pleasure and crime together? 
Give up that noon I owned my love for you? 
The garden's silence : even the single bee 
Persisting in his toil, suddenly stopped. 
And where he hid you only could surmise 
By some campanula chalice set a-swing. 
Who stammered — *' Yes, I love you ?" 

Sebald. And I drew 

Back; put far back your face with both my hands 



PIPPA PASSES. 19 

Lest you should grow too full of me — your face 
So seemed athirst for my whole soul and body ! 

Ottima. And when I ventured to receive you here, 
Made you steal hither in the mornings — 

Scbald. When 

I used to look up 'neath the shrub-house here. 
Till the red fire on its glazed windows spread 
To a yellow haze? 

Ottima. Ah — my sign -was, the sun 

Inflamed the sere side of yon chestnut-tree 
Nipped by the first frost. 

Sebald. You would always laugh 

At my wet boots : I had to stride thro' grass 
Over my ankles. 

Ottima. Then our crowning night ! 

Sebald. The July night ? 

Ottima. The day of it too, Sebald! 

When heaven's pillars seemed o'erbowed with heat. 
Its black-blue canopy suffered descend 
Close on us both, to weigh down each to each, 
And smother up all life except our life. 
So lay we till the storm came. 

Sebald. How it came ! 

Ottima. Buried in woods we lay, you recollect; 
Swift ran the searching tempest overhead ; 
And ever and anon some bright white shaft 
Burned thro' the pine-tree roof, here burned and there, 
As if God's messenger thro' the close wood screen 
Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture, 
Feeling for guilty thee and me: then broke 
The thunder like a whole sea overhead — 

Sebald. Yes! 

Ottima. — While I stretched myself upon you, hands 
To hands, my mouth to your hot mouth, and shook 



20 PIPPA PASSES. 

All my locks loose, and covered you with them — 
You, Sebald, the same you ! 

Sehald. Slower, Ottima ! 

Ottima. And as we lay — 

Sebald. Less vehemently ! Love me ! 

Forgive me ! Take not words, mere words, to heart ! 
Your breath is worse than wine ! Breathe slow, speak 

slow ! 
Do not lean on me ! 

Ottima. Sebald, as we lay, 

Rising and falling only with our pants, 
Who said, "Let death come now ! 'T is right to die ! 
Right to be punished ! Naught completes such bliss 
But woe!" Who said that? 

Sebald. How did we ever rise ? 

Was 't that we slept? Why did it end? 

Ottima. I felt you 

Taper into a point the ruffled ends 
Of my loose locks 'twixt both your humid lips. 
My hair is fallen now : knot it again ! 

Sebald. I kiss you now, dear Ottima, now and now { 
This way? Will you forgive me — be once more 
]\Iy great queen? 

Ottima. Bind it thrice about my brow; 

Crown me your queen, your spirit's arbitress. 
Magnificent in sin. Say that ! 

Sebald. I crown you 

My great white queen, my spirit's arbitress, 
Magnificent . . . 
[From without is heard the voice of Pippa, singing — 

The year 's at the spring 
And day 's at the morn; 
Morning 's at seven; 



FIPPA PASSES. 21 

The hill-side 's dew-pearled; 

The lark 's on the wing; 

The snail 's on the thorn: 

God 's in his heaven — 

All 's right with the world! [Vivv A passes. 

Sehald. God 's in his heaven! Do you hear that? 
Who spoke? 
You, you spoke ! 

Ottima. Oh — that little ragged girl ! 

She must have rested on the step : we give them 
But this one holiday the whole year round. 
Did you ever see our silk-mills — their inside? 
There are ten silk-mills now belong to you. 
She stoops to pick my double heartsease . . . Sh ! 
She does not hear : call you out louder ! 

Sehald. Leave me ! 

Go, get your clothes on — dress those shoulders ! 

Ottima. Sebald? 

Sebald. Wipe off that paint ! I hate you. 

Ottima. Miserable ! 

Sehald. My God, and she is emptied of it now ! 
Outright now ! — how miraculously gone 
All of the grace — had she not strange grace once? 
Why, the blank cheek hangs listless as it likes, 
No purpose holds the features up together, 
Only the cloven brow and puckered chin 
Stay in their places : and the very hair, 
That seemed to have a sort of life in it, 
Drops, a dead web! 

Ottima. Speak to me — not of me ! 

Sehald. — That round great full-orbed face, where 
not an angle 
?roke the delicious indolence — all broken ! 



PIP PA PASSES. 



Ottima. To me — not of me! Ungrateful, per- 
jured cheat ! 
A coward too : but ingrate 's worse than all. 
Beggar — my slave — a fawning, cringing lie ! 
Leave me ! Betray me ! I can see your drift ! 
A lie that walks and eats and drinks ! 

Sebdld. My God! 

Those morbid olive faultless shoulder-blades — 
I should have known there was no blood beneath ! 

Ottima. You hate me then ? You hate me then? 

Sebald. To think 

She would succeed in her absurd attempt, 
And fascinate by sinning, show herself 
Superior — guilt from its excess superior 
To innocence ! That little peasant's voice 
Has righted all again. Though I be lost, 
I know which is the better, never fear. 
Of vice or virtue, purity or lust. 
Nature or trick ! I see. what I have done. 
Entirely now ! Oh I am proud to feel 
Such torments — let the world take credit thence — 
I, having done my deed, pay too its price ! 
I hate, hate — curse you ! God 's in his heaven ! 

Ottima. —Me! 

Me ! no, no, Sebald, not yourself — kill me 1 
Lline is the whole crime. Do but kill me — then 
Yourself — then — presently — first hear me speak! 
I always meant to kill myself — wait, you I 
Lean on my breast — not as a breast ; don't love me 
The more because you lean on me, my own 
Heart's Sebald ! There, there, both deaths presently ! 

Sebald. My brain is di owned now — quite drowned: 
all I feel 
Is . . . is, at swift-recurring intervals. 



PIP PA PASSES. 



23 



A hurry-dcwn within me, as of waters 
Loosened to smother up some ghastly pit : 
There they go — whirls from a black fiery sea ! 
Ottima. Not me — to him, O God, be merciful! 

Talk by the zvay, 7vhile Pippa is passing from the hill- 
side to Orcana. Foreign Students of painting and 
sculpture, from Venice, assembled opposite the 
house of Jules, a young French statuary, ai 
Possagno. 

1st Student. Attention ! My own post is beneatk 
this window, but the pomegranate clump yonder will 
hide three or four of you with a little squeezing, and 
Schramm and his pipe must lie flat in the balcony. 
Four, five — who's a defaulter? We want everybody, 
for Jules must not be suffered to hurt his bride when 
the jest 's found out. 

2nd Student. All here ! Only our poet 's away 
— never having much meant to be present, moon- 
strike him ! The airs of that fellow, that Giovac- 
chino ! He was in violent love with himself, and 
had a fair prospect of thriving in his suit, so un- 
molested was it, — when suddenly a woman falls in 
love with him, too; and out of pure jealousy he takes 
himself off to Trieste, immortal poem and all : 
whereto is this prophetical epitaph appended already, 
as Bluphocks assures me, — "'Here a mammoth-poem, 
lies, Fouled to death by butterflies" His own 
faidt, the simpleton ! Instead of cramp couplets, 
each like a knife in your entrails, he should write, 
says Bluphocks, both classically and intelligibly, — 
Aisculapius, an Epic. Catalogue of the drugs: Hebe's 
plaister — One strip Cools your lip. Phoebus' emul' 



24 PIPPA PASSES. 

sion — One bottle Clears your throttle. Mercury's 
bolus — One box Cures . . . 

3rd Student. Subside, my fine fellow ! If the mar- 
riage was over by ten o'clock, Jules will certainly 
be here in a minute with his bride. 

2nd Student. Good! — only, so should the poet's 
muse have been universally acceptable, says Blu- 
phocks, et canibus nostris . . . and Delia not better 
known to our literary dogs than the boy Giovacchino ! 

1st Student. To the point, now. Where 's Gott- 
lieb, the new-comer? Oh, — listen, Gottlieb, to what 
has called down this piece of friendly vengeance on 
Jules, of which we now assemble to witness the 
winding-up. We are all agreed, all in a tale, ob- 
serve, when Jules shall burst out on us in a fury 
by and by: I am spokesman — the verses that are 
to undeceive Jules bear my name of Lutwyche — 
but each professes himself alike insulted by this 
strutting stone-squarer, who came alone from Paris 
to Munich, and thence with a crowd of us to Venice 
and Possagno here, but proceeds in a day or two 
alone again — oh, alone indubitably! — to Rome and 
Florence. He, forsooth, take up his portion with 
these dissolute, brutalized, heartless bunglers ! — so he 
was heard to call us all : now, is Schramm brutalized, 
I should like to know? Am I heartless? 

Gottlieb. Why, somewhat heartless ; for, suppose 
Jules a coxcomb as much as you choose, still, for 
this mere coxcombry, you will have brushed off — 
what do folks style it? — ^the bloom of his life. Is it 
too late to alter? These love-letters now, you call 
his — I can't laugh at them. 

4th Student. Because you never read the sham 
letters of our inditing which drew forth these. 



PIPPA PASSES. 25 

Gottlieb. His discovery of the truth will be fright- 
ful. 

4th Student. That 's the joke. But you should have 
joined us at the beginning: there's no doubt he loves 
the girl — loves a model he might hire by the hour ! 

Gottlieb. See here ! "He has been accustomed," 
he writes, "to have Canova's women about him, in 
stone, and the world's women beside him, in flesh ; 
these being as much below, as those above, his soul's 
aspiration : but now he is to have the reality." There 
you laugh again ! I say, you wipe off the very dew 
of his youth. 

1st Student. Schramm! (Take the pipe out of 
his mouth, somebody!) Will Jules lose the bloom 
of his youth? 

Schramm. Nothing worth keeping is ever lost in 
this world : look at a blossom — it drops presently, 
having done its service and lasted its time ; but fruits 
succeed, and where would be the blossom's place 
could it continue? As well affirm that your eye 
is no longer in your body, because its earliest favor- 
ite, whatever it may have first loved to look on, 
is dead and done with — as that anv affection is 
lost to the soul when its first object, whatever hap- 
pened first to satisfy it, is superseded in due course. 
Keep but ever looking, whether with the body's eye 
or the mind's, and you will soon find something to 
look on! Has a man done wondering at women? — 
there follow men, dead and alive, to wonder at. Has 
he done wondering at men? — there 's God to won- 
der at: and the faculty of wonder may be, at the 
same time, old and tired enough with respect to 
its first object, and yet young and fresh sufficiently, 
so far as concerns its novel one. Thus . . . 



26 PIPPA PASSES. 

1st Student. Put Schramm's pipe into his mouth 
again ! There, you see ! Well, this Jules ... a 
wretched fribble — oh, I watched his disportings at 
Possagno, the other day! Canova's gallery — you 
know : there he marches first resolvedly past great 
works by the dozen without vouchsafing an eye : 
all at once he stops full at the Psiche-fanciulla 
— cannot pass that old acquaintance without a nod 
of encouragement — "In your new place, beauty? 
Then behave yourself as well here as at Munich — 
I see you!" Next he posts himself deliberately 
before the unfinished Pieta for half an hour without 
moving, till up he starts of a sudden, and thrusts his 
very nose mto — I say, into — the group ; by which 
gesture you are informed that precisely the sole 
point he had not fully mastered in Canova's prac- 
tice was a certain method of using the drill in the 
articulation of the knee-joint — and that, likewise, has 
he mastered at length ! Good-bye, therefore, to poor 
Canova — whose gallery no longer needs detain his 
successor Jules, the predestinated novel thinker in 
marble ! 

Sth Student. Tell him about the women: go on 
to the women ! 

1st Student. Why, on that matter he could never 
be supercilious enough. How should we be other 
(he said) than the poor devils you see, with those 
debasing habits we cherish? He was not to wal- 
low in that mire, at least : he would wait, and love 
only at the proper time, and meanwhile put up 
with the Psiche-fanciulla. Now, I happened to 
hear of a young Greek — real Greek girl at Mala- 
mocco ; a true Islander, do you see, with Alciphron's 
"hair like sea-moss" — Schramm knows ! — white and 



PIPPA PASSES. 27 

quiet as an apparition, and fourteen years old at 
farthest, — a daughter of NataHa, so she swears — 
that hag Natalia, who helps us to models at three 
lire an hour. We selected this girl for the heroine 
or our jest. So first, Jules received a scented let- 
ter — somebody had seen his Tydeus at the Acad- 
emy, and my picture was nothing to it : a profound 
admirer bade him persevere — would make herself 
known to him ere long. (Paolina, my little friend 
of the Fenice, transcribes divinely.) And in due 
time, the mysterious correspondent gave certain hints 
of her peculiar charms — the pale cheeks, the black 
hair — whatever, in short, had struck us in our Mala- 
mocco model : we retained her name, too — Phene, 
which is, by interpretation, sea-eagle. Now, think 
of Jules finding himself distinguished from the herd 
of us by such a creature ! In his very first an- 
swer he proposed marrying his monitress : and fancy 
us over these letters, two, three times a day, to 
receive and despatch ! I concocted the main of it : 
relations were in the way — secrecy must be observed 
— in fine, would he wed her on trust, and only speak 
to her when they were indissolubly united? St — st — 
Here they come ! 

6th Student. Both of them ! Heaven's love, speak 
softly, speak within yourselves ! 

Sth Strident. Look at the bridegroom ! Half his 
hair in storm and half in calm, — patted down over 
the left temple, — like a frothy cup one blows on to 
cool it : and the same old blouse that he murders the 
marble in. 

2nd Student. Not a rich vest like yours, Han- 
nibal Scratchy! — rich, that your face may the better 
set it oft*. 



28 PIPPA PASSES. 

6th Student. And the bride! Yes, sure enough, 
our Phene! Should you have known her in her 
clothes? How magnificently pale! 

Gottlieb. She does not also take it for earnest, 
I hope? 

1st Student. Oh, Natalia's concern, that is ! We 
settle with Natalia. 

6th Student. She does not speak — has evidently 
let out no word. The only thing is, will she equally 
remember the rest of her lesson, and repeat cor- 
rectly all those verses which are to break the secret 
to Jules? 

Gottlieb. How he gazes on her ! Pity — pity ! 

1st Student. They go in : now, silence ! You 
three, — not nearer the window, mind, than that pome- 
granate : just whore the little girl, who a few minutes 
ago passed us singing, is seated ! 

n.— NOON. 

Scene. — Over Orcana. The house of Jules, who 
crosses its threshold with. Phene: she is silent, 
on zvhich Jules begins — 

Do not die, Phene ! I am yours now, you 

Arc mine now ; let fate reach me how she likes, 

If you '11 not die : so, never die ! Sit here — 

My work-room's single seat. I over-lean 

This length of hair and lustrous front ; they turn 

Like an entire flower upward: eyes, lips, last 

Your chin — no, last your throat turns: 't is their 

scent 
Pulls down my face upon you. Nay, look ever 
This one way till I change, grow you — I could 
Change into you, beloved ! 



PIPPA PASSES. 29 

You by me, 
And I by you ; this is your hand in mine, 
And side by side we sit : all 's true. Thank God ! 
I have spoken ; speak you ! 

O my life to come ! 
My Tydeus must be carved that 's there in clay ; 
Yet how be carved, with you about the room? 
Where must I place you? When I think that-once 
This room-full of rough block-work seemed my 

heaven 
Without you ! Shall I ever work again, 
Get fairly into my old ways again, 
Bid each conception stand while, trait by trait 
My hand transfers its lineaments to stone? 
Will my mere fancies live near you, their truth — 
The live truth, passing and repassing me, 
Sitting beside me? 

Now spe^k! 

Only first, 
See, all your letters! Was 't not well contrived? 
Their hiding-place is Psyche's robe; she keeps 
Your letters next her skin : which drops out foremost? 
Ah, — this that swam down like a first moonbeam 
Into my world ! 

Again those eyes complete 
Their melancholy survey, sweet and slow, 
Of all my room holds; to return and rest 
On me, with pity, yet some wonder too : 
As if God bade some spirit plague a world, 
And this were the one moment of surprise 
And sorrow while she took her station, pausing 
O'er what she sees, finds good, and must destroy! 
What gaze you at? Those? Books, I told you of; 
Let your first word to me rejoice them, too-' 



30 PIPPA PASSES. 

This minion, a Coluthus, writ in red 

Bistre and azure by Bessarion's scribe — 

Read this line . . . no, shame — Homer's be the 

Greek 
P'irst breathed me from the Hps of my Greek girl ! 
This Odyssey in coarse black vivid type 
With faded yellow blossoms 'twixt page and page. 
To mark great places with due gratitude ; 
''He said, and on Antinous directed 
A bitter shaft" ... a fiower blots out the rest I 
Again upon your search ? My statues, then ! 
— Ah, do not mind that — better th; '; will look 
When cast in bronze — an Almaign Kaiser, that, 
Swart-green and gold, with truncheon based on hip. 
This, rather, turn to! What, unrecognized? 
I thought you would have seen that here you sit 
As I imagined you, — Hippolyta, 
Naked upon her bright Numidian horse. 
Recall you this then? ''Carve in bold relief" — 
So you commanded — "carve, against I come, 
A Greek, in Athens, as our fashion was. 
Feasting, bay-filleted and thunder-free. 
Who rises 'neath the lifted myrtle-branch. 
'Praise those who slew Hipparchus!' cry the guests, 
'While o'er thy head the singer's myrtle waves 
As erst above our champion : stand up, all !' " 
See, I have labored to express your thought. 
Quite round, a cluster of mere hands and arms, 
(Thrust in all senses, all ways, from all sides, 
Only consenting at the branch's end 
They strain forward) serves for frame to a sole face, 
The Praiser's, in the centre : who with eyes 
Sightless, so bend they back to light inside 
His brain where visionary forms throng up. 



PIPPA PASSES. 31 

Sings, minding not that palpitating arch 

Of hands and arms, nor the quick drip of wine 

From the drenched leaves o'erhead, nor crowns cast 

off, 
Violet and parsley crowns to trample on — 
Sings, pausing as the patron-ghosts approve. 
Devoutly their unconquerable hymn. 
But you must say a "well" to that — say "well !'* 
Because you gaze — am I fantastic, sweet? 
Gaze like my very life's-stuff, marble — marbly 
Even to the silence ! Why, before I found 
The real flesh Phene, I inured myself 
To see, throughout all nature, varied stuff 
For better nature's birth by means of art : 
With me, each substance tended to one form 
Of beauty — to the human archetype. 
On every side occurred suggestive germs 
Of that — the tree, the flower — or take the fruit, — 
Some rosy shape, continuing the peach, 
'Curved beewise o'er its bough ; as rosy limbs, 
Depending, nestled in the leaves; and just 
From a cleft rose-peach the whole Dryad sprang. 
But of the stuffs one can be master of, 
How I divined their capabilities ! 
From the soft-rinded smoothening facile chalk 
That yields your outline to the air's embrace, 
Tialf-softened by a halo's pearly gloom ; 
Down to the crisp imperious steel, so sure 
To cut its one confided thought clean out 
Of all the world. But marble ! — 'neath my tools 
More pliable than jelly — as it were 
Some clear primordial creature dug from depths 
In the earth's heart, where itself breeds itself, 
And whence all baser substance may be worked; 



32 PIPPA PASSES. 

Refine it off to air, you may, — condense it 
Down to the diamond ; — is not metal there, 
When o'er the sudden speck my chisel trips ? 
— Not flesh, as flake off flake I scale, approach, 
Lay bare those bluish veins of blood asleep? 
Lurks flame in no strange windings where, surprised 
By the swift implement sent home at once, 
Flushes and glowings radiate and hover 
About its track? 

Phene? what — why is this? 
That whitening cheek, those still dilating eyes ! 
Ah, you will die — I knew that you would die ! 

Phene begins, on his having long remained 
silent. 
Now the end 's coming ; to be sure, it must 
Have ended sometime ! Tush, why need I speak 
Their foolish speech? I cannot bring to mind 
One half of it, beside; and do not care 
For old Natalia now, nor any of them. 
Oh, you — what are you? — if I do not try 
To say the words Natalia made me learn, 
To please your friends, — it is to keep myself 
Where your voice lifted me, by letting that 
Proceed: but can it? Even you, perhaps. 
Cannot take up, now you have once let fall, 
The music's life, and me along with that — 
No, or you would! We'll stay, then, as we are: 
Above the world. 

You creature with the eyes ! 
If I could look forever up to them. 
As now you let me, — I believe, all sin, 
All memory of wrong done, suffering borne. 
Would drop down, low and lower, to the earth 



PIPPA PASSES. Z3 

Whence all that 's low comes, and there touch and 

stay 
— Never to overtake the rest of me, 
All that, unspotted, reaches up to you. 
Drawn by those eyes ! What rises is myself, 
Not me the shame and suffering ; but they sink, 
Are left, I rise above them. Keep me so. 
Above the world ! 

But you sink, for your eyes 
Are altering — altered ! Stay — "I love you, 

love" . . . 
I could prevent it if I understood : 
More of your words to me : was 't in the tone 
Or the words, your power? 

Or stay — I will repeat 
Their speech, if that contents you ! Only change 
No more, and I shall find it presently 
Far back here, in the brain yourself filled up. 
Natalia threatened me that harm should follow 
Unless I spoke their lesson to the end, 
But harm to me, I thought she meant, not you. 
Your friends, — Natalia said they were your friends 
And meant you well, — because, I doubted it, 
Observing (what was very strange to see) 
On every face, so different in all else, 
The same smile girls like me are used to bear, 
But never men, men cannot stoop so low: 
Yet your friends, speaking of you, used that smile, 
That hateful smirk of boundless self-conceit 
Which seems to take possession of the world 
And make of God a tame confederate.- 
Purveyor to their appetites . . . you know ! 
But still Natalia said they were your friends, 
And they assented though they smiled the more, 



34 PIPPA PASSES. 

And all came round me, — that thin Englishman 

With light lank hair seemed leader of the rest; 

He held a paper — "What we want," said he, 

Ending some explanation to his friends — 

"Is something slow, involved and mystical, 

To hold Jules long in doubt, yet take his taste 

And lure him on until, at innermost 

Where he seeks sweetness' soul, he may find — this ! 

— As in the apple's core, the noisome fly: 

For insects on the rind are seen at once. 

And brushed aside as soon, but this is found 

Only when on the lips or loathing tongue." 

And so he read what I have got by heart : 

I'll speak it, — "Do not die, love! I am yours.'* 

No — is not that, or like that, part of words 

Yourself began by speaking? Strange to lose 

What cost such pains to learn! Is this more right? 

/ am a painter "Jjho cannot paint; 

In my life, a devil rather than saint; 

In my brain, as poor a creature too: 

No end to all I cannot do! 

Yet do one thing at least I can — 

Love a man or hate a man 

Supremely: thus w.y lore began. 

Through the Valley of Love I went, 

In the lovingest spot to abide. 

And just on the verge where I pitched my tent, 

I found Hate dwelling beside. 

{Let the Bridegroom ask zvhat the painter meant, 

Of his Bride, of the peerless Bride!) 

And further, I traversed Hate's grove, 

In the hatefullest nook to dzvell; 

But lo, where I Hung myself prone, couched Love 



PIP PA PASSES. 35 

Where the shadozu tlireefold fell. 

{The meaning — those black bride' s-eyes above, 

Not a painter's lip should tell!) 

"And here," said he, "Jules probably will ask, 
'You have black eyes, Love, — you are, sure enough, 
My peerless bride, — then do you tell indeed . 
What needs some explanation ! What means this ?' " 
— And I am to go on, without a word — 

So, I grezv wise in Love and Hate, 

From simple that I zvas of late. 

Once, zvhen I loved, I zjuould enlace 

Breast, eyelids, hands, feet, form and face 

Of her I loved, in one embrace — 

As if by mere love I could love immensely! 

Once, when I hated, I zvould plunge 

My szi'ord, and zvipe zvith the first lunge 

My foe's zjuhole life out like a sponge — 

As if by mere hate I could hate intensely! 

But nozv I am zviser, knozv better the fashion 

Hozu passion seeks aid from its opposite passion: 

And if I see cause to love more, hate more 

Than ever man loved, ever hated before — 

And seek in the Valley of Love, 

The nest, or the nook in Hate's Grove, 

Where my soul may surely reach 

The essence, naught less, of each, 

The Hate of all Hates, the Love 

Of all Loves, in the Valley or Grove,-^ 

I find them the very zvarders 

Each of the other's borders. 

When I love most, Love is disguised 

In Hate; and zvhcn Hate is surprised 



36 PIP PA PASSES. 

In Love, then I hate most: ask 

How Love smiles through Hate's iron casque, 

Hate grins through Love's rose-braided mask, — 

And how, having hated thee, 

I sought long and painfully 

To freach thy heart, nor prick 

The skin but pierce to the quick — 

Ask this, my Jules, and be answered straight 

By thy bride — hozv the painter Lutwyche can hate! 

Jules interposes. 
Lutwyche! Who else? But all of them, no doubt, 
Hated me : they at Venice — presently 
Their turn, however ! You I shall not meet : 
If I dreamed, saying this would wake me. 

Keep 
What 's here, the gold — we cannot meet again, 
Consider ! and the money was but meant 
For two years' travel, which is over now, 
All chance or hope or care or need of it. 
This — and what comes from selling these, my casts 
And books and medals, except ... let them go 
Together, so the produce keeps you safe 
Out of Natalia's clutches ! If by chance 
(For all 's chance here) I should survive the gang 
At Venice, root out all fifteen of them. 
We might meet somewhere, since the world is wide. 
[From without is heard the voice of Pippa, 

singing — 

Give her but a least excuse to love me! 
When — wh ere — 

How — can this arm establish her above mt. 
If fortune fixed her as my lady there. 



PIP PA PASSES. 2>7 

There already, to eternally reprove me? 
("Hist!" — said Kate the Queen; 
But "Oh!" — cried the maiden, binding her 

tresses, 
'"Tis only a page that carols unseen, 
Crumbling your hounds their messes!"') 

Is she wronged? — To the rescue of her honor, 
My heart! 

Is she poor? — What costs it to be styled a donor? 
Merely an earth to cleave, a sea to part. 
But that fortune should have thrust all this upon 
her! 
("Nay, list!" — bade Kate the Queen; 
And still cried the maiden, binding her tresses, 
'"T is only a page that carols unseen. 
Fitting your hawks their jesses!") 

[PippA passes, 
Jules resumes. 
What name was that the little girl sang forth? 
Kate? The Cornaro, doubtless, who renounced 
The crown of Cyprus to be lady here 
At Asolo, where still her memory stays, 
And peasants sing how once a certain page 
Pined for the grace of her so far above 
His power of doing good to, ''Kate the Queen — 
She never could be wronged, be poor," he sighed, 
"Need him to help her!'' 

Yes, a bitter thing 
To see our lady above all need of us ; 
Yet so we look ere we will love; not I, 
But the world looks so. If whoever loves 
Must be, in some sort, god or worshipper, 
The blessing or the blest one, queen or page, 
Why should we always choose the page's part? 



38 PIPPA PASSES. 

Here is a woman with utter need of me, — 
I find myself queen here, it seems ! 

How strange! 
Look at the woman here with the new soul. 
Like my own Psyche, — fresh upon her lips 
Alit, the visionary butterfly, 
Waiting my word to enter and make bright, 
Or flutter off and leave all blank as first. 
This body had no soul before, but slept 
Or stirred, was beauteous or ungainly, free 
From taint or foul with stain, as outward things 
Fastened their image on its passiveness : 
Now, it will wake, feel, live — or die again ! 
Shall to produce form out of unshaped stuff 
Be Art — and further, to evoke a soul 
From form be nothing? This new soul is mine! 

Now, to kill Lutwyche, what would that do ? — save 
A wretched dauber, men will hoot to death 
Without me, from their hooting. Oh, to hear 
God's voice plain as I heard it first, before 
They broke in with their laughter ! I heard them 
Henceforth, not God. 

To Ancona — Greece — some isle ! 
I wanted silence only; there is clay 
Everywhere. One may do whate'er one likes 
In Art : the only thing is, to make sure 
That one does like it — which takes pains to know. 

Scatter all this, my Phene — this mad dream 1 
Who, what is Lutwyche, what Natalia's friends, 
What the whole world except our love — my own, 
Own Phene? But I told you, did I not. 
Ere night we travel for your land — some isle 
With the sea's silence on it? Stand aside — 



PIPPA PASSES. 39 

I do but break these paltry models up 

To begin Art afresh. Meet Lutwyche, I — 

And save him from my statue meeting him ? 

Some unsuspected isle in the far seas ! 

Like a god going through his world, there stands 

One mountain for a moment in the dusk, 

Whole brotherhoods of cedars on its brow : ^ 

And you are ever by me while I gaze 

— Are in my arms as now — as now — as now ! 

Some unsuspected isle in the far seas ! 

Some unsuspected isle in far-off seas ! 

Talk by the way, while Pippa is passing from Orcana 
to the Turret. Two or three of the Austrian 
Police loitering zvitli Bluphocks, an English 
vagabond, just in view of the Turret. 

Bluphocks. So, that is your Pippa, the little girl 
who passed us singing? Well, your Bishop's In- 
tendant's money shall be honestly earned: — now, 
don't make me that sour face because I bring the 
Bishop's name into the business ; we know he can 
have nothing to do with such horrors : we know 
that he is a saint and all that a bishop should be, 
who is a great man beside. Oh were but every worm 
a maggot. Every Hy a grig, Every bough a Christmas 
faggot. Every tune a jig! In fact, I have abjured all 
religions; but the last I inclined to, was the Armen- 
ian : for I have travelled, do you see, and at Koenigs- 
berg, Prussia Improper (so styled because there 's a 
sort of bleak hungry sun there), you might re- 
mark over a venerable house-porch, a certain Chaldee 
inscription ; and brief as it is, a mere glance at it used 



40 PIPPA PASSES. 

absolutely to change the mood of every bearded pas- 
senger. In they turned, one and all ; the young and 
lightsome, with no irreverent pause, the aged and de- 
crepit, with a sensible alacrity ; 't was the Grand Rab- 
bi's abode, in short. Struck with curiosity, I lost no 
time in learning Syriac — (these are vowels, you 
dogs, — follow my stick's end in the mud — Celarent, 
Darii, Ferio!) and one morning presented myself, 
spelling-book in hand, a, b, c, — I picked it out let- 
ter by letter, and what was the purport of this 
miraculous posy? Some cherished legend of the past, 
you '11 say — ^'How Moses hocuspocussed Egypt's land 
with Hy and locust," — or, "Hozv to Jonah sounded 
harshish, Get thee up and go to Tarshish," — or, 
"How the angel meeting Balaam, Straight his ass re- 
turned a salaatn." In no wise ! "Shackahrack — Boach 
— somebody or other — Isaach, Re-cei-ver, Pur-cha- 
ser and Ex-chan-ger of — Stolen Goods!" So, talk 
to me of the religion of a bishop ! I have renounced 
all bishops save Bishop Beveridge — mean to live 
so — and die — As some Greek dog-sage, dead and 
merry, Hellward hound in Charon's wherry. With 
food for both worlds, under and upper. Lupine-seed 
and Hecate's supper. And never an obohis . . . 
(Though thanks to you, or this Intendant through 
you, or this Bishop through his Intendant — I possess 
a burning pocketful of swansigers) . . . To pay the 
Stygian Ferry! 

1st Policeman. There is the girl, then ; go and 
deserve them the moment you have pointed out to us 
Signor Luigi and his mother. [To the rest.] I have 
been noticing a house yonder, this long while : not a 
shutter unclosed since morning ! 

2nd Policeman. Old Luca Gaddi's, that owns the 



PIPPA PASSES. 41 

silk-mills here : he dozes by the hour, wakes up, sighs 
deeply, says he should like to be Prince Metter- 
nich, and then dozes again, after having bidden 
young Sebald, the foreigner, set his wife to playing 
draughts. Never molest such a household, they mean 
well. 

Bluphocks. Only, cannot you tell me sornething of 
this little Pippa, I must have to do with? One 
could make something of that name. Pippa — that is, 
short for Felippa — rhyming to Panurge consults Her- 
trippa — Believest thou, King Agrippaf Something 
might be done with that name. 

2nd Policeman. Put into rhyme that your head 
and a ripe musk-melon would not be dear at half a 
zii'anziger! Leave this fooling, and look out; the 
afternoon's over or nearly so. 

2,rd Policeman. Where in this passport of Signor 
Luigi does our Principal instruct you to watch him so 
narrowly? There? What 's there beside a simple 
signature? (That English fool's busy watching.) 

2nd Policeman. Flourish all round — "Put all pos- 
sible obstacles in his way;" oblong dot at the end 

"Detain him till further advices reach you;" 
^'-ratch at bottom — "Send him back on pretence of 
some informality in the above;" ink-spirt on right- 
hand side (which is the case here) — "Arrest him 
•at once." Why and wherefore, I don't concern 
myself, but my instructions amount to this: if 
Sip;nor Luigi leaves home to-night for Vienna — well 
and good, the passport deposed with us for our visa 
is really for his own use, they have misinformed 
the Office, and he means well ; but let him stay 
over to-night — there has been the pretence we sus- 
pect, the accounts of his corresponding and holding 



42 PIPPA PASSES. 

intelligence with the Carbonari are correct, we ar- 
rest him at once, to-morrow comes Venice, and 
presently Spielberg. Bluphocks makes the signal, 
sure enough ! That is he, entering the turret with 
his mother, no doubt. 

TL— EVENING. 

Scene. — Inside the Turret on the Hill above Asolo. 
LuiGi and his Mother entering. 

Mother. If there blew wind, you 'd hear a long 
sigh, easing 
The utmost heaviness of music's heart. 
Luigi. Here in the archway? 

Mother. Oh no, no — in farther, 

Where the echo is made, on the ridge. 

Luigi. Here surely, then 

How plain the tap of my heel as I leaped up ! 
Hark — "Lucius Junius!" The very ghost of a 

voice 
Whose body is caught and kept by . . . what are 

those? 
Mere withered wallflowers, waving overhead? 
They seem an elvish group with thin bleached hair 
That lean out of their topmost fortress — look 
And listen, mountain men, to what we say. 
Hand under chin of each grave earthy ^ace. 
Up and show faces all of you! — "All of you!" 
That's the king dwarf with the scarlet comb; old 

Franz, 
Come down and meet your fate ? Hark — "Meet your 
fate !" 
Mother. Let him not meet it, my Luigi — do net 



PIP PA PASSES. 43 

Go to his City ! Putting crime aside, 
Half of these ills of Italy are feigned : 
Your Pellicos and writers for effect, 
Write for effect. 

Luigi. Hush ! Say A. writes, and B. 

Mother. These A.s and B.s write for effect, I say. 
Then, evil is in its nature loud, while good - 
Is silent; you hear each petty injuf/. 
None of his virtues ; he is old beside. 
Quiet and kind, and densely stupid. Why 
Do A. and B. not kill him themselves? 

Luigi. They teach 

Others to kill him — me — and, if I fail. 
Others to succeed; now, if A. tried and failed, 
I could not teach that : mine 's the lesser task. 
Mother, they visit night by night . . . 

Mother. — You, Luigi? 

Ah, will you let me tell you what you are ? 

Luigi. Why not? Oh, the one thing you fear to 
hint. 
You may assure yourself I say and say 
Ever to myself! At times — nay, even as now 
We sit — I think my mind is touched, suspect 
All is not sound : but is not knowing that, 
What constitutes one sane or otherwise? 
I know I am thus — so, all is right again. 
I laugh at myself as through the town I walk, 
And see men merry as if no Italy 
Were suffering; then I ponder — "I am rich, 
Young, healthy ; why should this fact trouble me, 
More than it troubles these ?" But it does trouble. 
No, trouble 's a bad word : for as I walk 
There 's springing and melody and giddiness. 
And old quamt turns and passages of my youth. 



44 PIP PA PASSES. 

Dreams long forgotten, little in themselves, 

Return to me — whatever may amuse me : 

And earth seems in a truce with me, and heaven 

Accords with me, all things suspend their strife, 

The very cicala laughs "There goes he, and there ! 

Feast him, the time is short; he is on his way 

For the world's sake: feast him this once, our 

friend !" 
And in return for all this, I can trip 
Cheerfully up the scaffold-steps. I go 
This evening, mother ! 

Mother. But mistrust yourself — 

Mistrust the judgment you pronounce on him! 

Liiigi. Oh, there I feel — am sure that I am right ! 

Mother. Mistrust your judgment then, of the mere 
means 
To this wild enterprise. Say, you are right, — 
How should one in your state e'er bring to pass 
What would require a cool head, a cold heart. 
And a calm hand? You never will escape. 

Luigi. Escape? To even wish that, would spoil all. 
The dying is best part of it. Too much 
Have I enjoyed these fifteen years of mine, 
To leave myself excuse for longer life: 
Was not life pressed down, running o'er with joy, 
That I might finish with it ere my fellows 
Who. sparelier feasted, make a longer stay? 
I was put at the board-head, helped to all 
At first ; I rise up happy and content. 
God must be glad one loves his world so much. 
I can give news of earth to all the dead 
Who ask me : — last year's sunsets, and great stars 
Which had a right to come first and see ebb 
The crimson wave that drifts the sun away — 



PIPPA PASS/IS. 45 

Those crescent moons with notched and burning rims 
That strengthened into sharp tire, and there stood, 
Impatient of the azure — and that day 
In March, a double rainbow stopped the storm — 
May's warm slow yellow moonlit summer nights — 
Gone are they, but I have them in my soul ! 

Mother, (He will not go !) 

Luigi. You smile at me? 'Tis true, — 

Voluptuousness, grotesqueness, ghastliness, 
Environ my devotedness as quaintly 
As round about some antique altar wreathe 
The rose festoons, goats' horns, and oxen's skulls. 

Mother. See now : you reach the city, you must 
cross 
His threshold — how? 

Luigi. Oh, that's if we conspired! 

Then would come pains in plenty, as you guess — 
But guess not how the qualities most fit 
For such an office, qualities I have, 
Would little stead me, otherwise employed. 
Yet prove of rarest merit only here. 
Every one knows for what his excellence 
Will serve, but no one ever will consider 
For what his worst defect might serve : and yet 
Have you not seen me range our coppice yonder 
In search of a distorted ash ? — I find 
The wry spoilt branch a natural perfect bow. 
Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precautioned man 
Arriving at the palace on my errand ! 
No, no ! I have a handsome dress packed up — 
White satin here, to set off my black hair ; 
In I shall march — for you may watch your life out 
Behind thick walls, make friends there to betray 
you ; 



46 PIPPA PASSES. 

More than one man spoils everything. March 

straight — 
Only, no clumsy knife to fumble for. 
Take the great gate, and walk (not saunter) on 

Thro' guards and guards 1 have rehearsed it all 

Inside the turret here a hundred times. 

Don't ask the way of whom you meet, observe ! 

But where they cluster thickliest is the door 

Of doors ; they '11 let you pass — they '11 never blab 

Each to the other, he knows not the favorite, 

Whence he is bound and what 's his business now. 

Walk in — straight up to him; you have no knife: 

Be prompt, how should he scream? Then, out with 

you ! 
Italy, Italy, my Italy ! 
You 're free, you 're free ! Oh mother, I could 

dream 
They got about me — Andrea from his exile. 
Pier from his dungeon, Gaultier from his grave ! 
Mother. Well, you shall go. Yet seems this pa- 
triotism 
The easiest virtue for a selfish man 
To acquire : he loves himself — and next, the world — 
If he must love beyond, — but naught between : 
As a short-sighted man sees naught midway 
His body and the sun above. But you 
Are my adored Luigi, ever obedient 
To my least wish, and running o'er with love : 
I could not call you cruel or unkind. 
Once more, your ground for killing him ! — then 
go! 
Liiigi. Now do you try me, or make sport of me? 
How first the Austrians got these provinces . . . 
(If that is all, I 'II satisfy you soon) 



PIPPA PASSES. 47 

— Never by conquest but by cunning, for 
That treaty whereby . . . 

Mother. Well? 

Luigi. (Sure, he 's arrived, 

The tell-tale cuckoo: spring 's his confidant, 
And he lets out her April purposes!) 
Or . . . better go at once to modern time, 
He has ... they have ... in fact, I understand 
But can't restate the matter; that 's my boast: 
Others could reason it out to you, and prove 
Things they have made me feel. 

Mother. Why go to-night? 

Morn 's for adventure. Jupiter is now 
A morning-star. I cannot hear you, Luigi ! 

Luigi. "I am the bright and morning-star," saith 
God— 
And, "to such an one I give the morning-star," 
The gift of the morning-star ! Have I God's gift 
Of the morning-star? 

Mother. Chiara will love to see 

That Jupiter an evening-star next June. 

Luigi. True, mother. Well for those who live 
through June ! 
Great noontides, thunder-storms, all glaring pomps 
That triumph at the heels of June the god 
Leading his revel through our leafy world. 
Yes, Chiara will be here. 

Mother. In June : remember. 

Yourself appointed that month for her coming. 

Luigi. Was that low noise the echo? 

Mother. The night-wind. 

She must be grown — with her blue eyes upturned 
As if life were one long and sweet surprise : 
fen June she comes. 



48 PIPPA PASSES. 

Luigi. We were to see together 

The Titian at Treviso. There, again ! 

[From without is heard the voice of Pippa, 

singing — 

A king lived long ago, 

In the morning of the world, 

When earth zvas nigher heaven than notw: 

And the king's locks curled, 

Disparting o'er a forehead full 

As the milk-white space 'twixt horn and horn 

Of some sacrificial hull — 

Only calm as a babe new-born: 

For he was got to a sleepy mood, 

So safe from all decrepitude. 

Age zvifh its bane, so sure gone by, 

(The gods so loved him while he dreamed) 

That, having lived thus long, there seemed 

No need the king should ever die. 

Luigi. No need that sort of king should ever die I 

Among the rocks his city was: 
Before his palace, in the sun. 
He sat to see his people pass. 
And judge them every one 
From its threshold of smooth stone. 
They haled him many a valley-thief 
Caught in the sheep-pens, robber-chief 
Swarthy and shameless, beggar-cheat. 
Spy-prowler, or rough pirate found 
On the sea-sand left aground; 
And sometimes clung about his feet, 
With bleeding lip and burning cheek, 
A woman, bitterest wrong to speak 



PIPPA PASSES. 49 

Of one with sullen thickset brows: 

And sometimes from the prison-house 

The angry priests a pale zvrctch brought, 

Who through some chink had pushed and pressed 

On knees and elbows, belly and breast. 

Worm-like into the temple, — caught 

He was by the very god. 

Who ever in the darkness strode 

Backzvard and forward, keeping watch 

O'er his brazen boivls, such rogues to catch! 

These, all and every one. 

The king judged, sitting in the sun. 

Luigi. That king should still judge sitting in the 
sun! 

His councillors, on left and right. 
Looked anxious up, — but no surprise 
Disturbed the king's old smiling eyes 
Where the very blue had turned to white. 
*T is said, a Python scared one day 
The breathless city, till he came. 
With forky tongue and eyes on Hame, 
Where the old king sat to judge alway; 
But when he saw the szveepy hair 
Girt with a crown of berries rare 
Which the god will hardly give to wear 
To the maiden zvho singeth, dancing bare 
In the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights, 
At his wondrous forest rites, — 
Seeing this, he did not dare 
Approach that threshold in the sun. 
Assault the old king smiling there. 
Such grace had kings when the world begun! 

[PippA passes. 



50 PIP PA PASSES. 

Luigi. And such grace have they, now that the 
world ends ! 
The Python at the city, on the throne, 
And brave men, God would crown for slaying him, 
Lurk in bye-corners lest they fall his prey. 
Are crowns yet to be won in this late time, 
Which weakness makes me hesitate to reach? 
'T is God's voice calls: how could I stay? Farewell! 



Talk by the way, while Pippa is passing from the 
Turret to the Bishop's Brother's House, close to 
the Duomo S. Maria. Poor Girls sitting on the 
steps. 

1st Girl. There goes a swallow to Venice— the 
stout seafarer ! 
Seeing those birds fly, makes one wish for wings. 
Let us all wish ; you wish first ! 

2nd Girl. I ? This sunset 

To finish. 

3rd Girl. That old — somebody I know, 
Grayer and older than my grandfather, 
To give me the same treat he gave last week — 
Feeding me on his knee with fig-peckers. 
Lampreys and red Breganze-wine, and mumbling 
The while some folly about how well I fare. 
Let sit and eat my supper quietly : 
Since had he not himself been late this morning 
Detained at — never mind where, — had he not . . . 
"Eh, baggage, had I not!" — 

2nd Girl. How she can lie ! 

2rd girl. Look there — by the nails ! 

2nd Girl. What makes your fingers red I 



PIPPA PASSES. 51 

Si'd Girl. Dipping them into wine to write bad 
words with 
On the bright table : how he laughed ! 

i^^ Girl. My turn. 

Spring 's come and summer 's coming. I would wear 
A long loose gown, down to the feet and hands, 
With plaits here, close about the throat, all day; 
And all night lie, the cool long nights, in bed ; 
And have new milk to drink, apples to eat, 
Deuzans and junetings, leather-coats . . . ah, I 

should say. 
This is away in the fields — miles ! 

3rd Girl. Say at once 

You 'd be at home : she 'd always be at home ! 
Now comes the story of the farm among 
The cherry orchards, and how April snowed 
White blossoms on her as she ran. Why, fool, 
They 've rubbed the chalk-mark out, how tall you were, 
Twisted your starling's neck, broken his cage. 
Made a dung-hill of your garden ! 

1st Girl. They, destroy 

My garden since I left them? well — perhaps! 
I would have done so : so I hope they have ! 
A fig-tree curled out of our cottage wall ; 
They called it mine, I have forgotten why, 
It must have been there long ere I was born : 
Cric — eric — I think I hear the wasps o'erhead 
Pricking the papers strung to flutter there 
And keep off birds in fruit-time — coarse long papers. 
And the wasps eat them, prick them through and 
through. 

3rd Girl. How her mouth twitches! Where was 
I ? — before 
She broke in with her wishes and long gowns 



52 PIPPA PASSES. 

And wasps — would I be such a fool ! — Oh, here ! 

This is my way : I answer every one 

Who asks me why I make so much of him — 

(If you say, "you love him" — straight "he'll not be 

gulled!") 
"He that seduced me when I was a girl 
Thus high — had eyes like yours, or hair like yourS;, 
Brown, red, white," — as the case may be: that 

pleases ! 
See how that beetle burnishes in the path ! 
There sparkles he along the dust : and, there — 
Your journey to that maize-tuft spoiled at least! 

ist Girl. When I was young, they said if you 
killed one 
Of those sunshiny beetles, that his friend 
Up there, would shine no more that day nor next. 

2nd Girl. When you were young? Nor are you 
young, that 's true. 
How your plump arms, that were, have dropped away ! 
Why, I can span them, Cecco beats you still? 
No matter, so you keep your curious hair. 
I wish they 'd find a way to dye our hair 
Your color — any lighter tint, indeed, 
Than black ; the men say they are sick of black, 
Black eyes, black hair ! 

A:th Girl. Sick of yours, like enough. 

Do you pretend you ever tasted lampreys 
And ortolans? Giovita, of the palace, 
Engaged (but there 's no trusting him) to slice mc 
Polenta with a knife that had cut up 
An ortolan. 

2nd Girl. Why. there ! Is not that Pippa 
We are to talk to, under the window, — quick,— 
Where the lights are ? 



PIPPA PASSES. 53 

1st Girl. That she? No, or she would sing, 

For the Intendant said . . . 

2,rd Girl. Oh, you sing first ! 

Then, if she listens and comes close . . . I'll tell 

you, — 
Sing that song the young English noble made. 
Who took you for the purest of the pure. 
And meant to leave the world for you — what fun ! 

2nd Girl [sings]. 

You 'II love me yet! — and I can tarry 

Your love's protracted growing: 
June reared that hunch of Howers you carry, 

From seeds of April's sowing. 

I plant a heart ful now: some seed 

At least is sure to strike, 
And yield — what you 'II not pluck indeed. 

Not love, but, may be, like. 

You 'II look at least on love's remains, 

A grave's one violet: 
Your look? — that pays a thousand pains. 

What 's death f You 'II love me yet! 

3rd Girl [to PiPPA, who approaches]. Oh, you 
may come closer — we shall not eat you ! Why, you 
seem the very person that the great rich handsome 
Englishman has fallen so violently in love with. I '11 
tell you all about it. 



54 PIPPA PASSES. 



IV.— NIGHT. 

Scene. — Inside the Palace by the Duomo. MoN- 
siGNOR, dismissing his Attendants. 

Monsignor. Thanks, friends, many thanks ! I 
chiefly desire life now, that I may recompense every 
one of you. Most I know something of already. 
What, a repast prepared? Benedicto bcnedicatur . . . 
ugh, ugh! Where was I? Oh, as you were re- 
marking, Ugo, the weather is mild, very unlike win- 
ter-weather : but I am a Sicilian, you know, and 
shiver in your Julys here. To be sure, when 't was 
full summer at Messina, as we priests used to cross 
in procession the great square on Assumption Day, 
you might see our thickest yellow tapers twist sud- 
denly in two, each like a falling star, or sink down 
on themselves in a gore of wax. But go, my friends, 
but go! [To the Intendant.] Not you, Ugo! IT he 
others leave the apartment.] I have long wanted 
to converse with you, Ugo. 

Intendant. Uguccio — 

Monsignor. . . . 'guccio Stefani, man! of Ascoli, 
Fermo and Fossombruno ; — what I do need instruct- 
ing about, are these accounts of your administra- 
tion of my poor brother's affairs. Ugh ! I shall 
never get through a third part of your accounts : take 
some of these dainties before we attempt it, how- 
ever. Are you bashful to that degree? For me, a 
crust and water suffice. 

Intendant. Do you choose this especial night to 
question me? 

Monsignor. This night, Ugo. You have man- 
aged my late brother's affairs since the death of ov^ 



PIPPA PASSES. 55 

elder brother: fourteen years and a month, all 
but three days. On the Third of December, I find 
him . . . 

Intendant. If you have so intimate an acquaintance 
with your brother's affairs, you will be tender of 
turning so far back: they will hardly bear looking 
into, so far back. 

Monsignor. Ay, ay, ugh, ugh, — nothing but dis- 
appointments here below ! I remark a considerable 
payment made to yourself on this Third of Decem- 
ber. Talk of disappointments ! There was a young 
fellow here, Jules, a foreign sculptor I did my ut- 
most to advance, that the Church might be a gainer 
by us both: he was going on hopefully enough, 
and of a sudden he notifies to me some marvel- 
lous change that has happened in his notions of Art. 
Here 's his letter, — "He never had a clearly con- 
ceived Ideal within his brain till to-day. Yet since 
his hand could manage a chisel, he has practised ex- 
pressing other men's Ideals ; and, in the very perfec- 
tion he has attained to, he foresees an ultimate fail- 
ure: his unconscious hand will pursue its prescribed 
course of old years, and will reproduce with a fatal 
expertness the ancient types, let the novel one appear 
never so palpably to his spirit. There is but one 
method of escape : confiding the virgin type to as chaste 
a hand, he will turn painter instead of sculptor, and 
paint, not carve, its characteristics," — strike out, I dare 
say, a school like Correggio: how think you, Ugo? 

Intendant. Is Correggio a painter? 

Monsignor. Foolish Jules ! and yet, after all, why 
foolish? He may — probably will — fail egregiously; 
but if there should arise a new painter, will it not 
be in some such way, by a poet now, or a musi- 



56 PIPPA PASSES. 

cian (spirits who have conceived and perfected an 
Ideal through some other channel), transferring it 
to this, and escaping our conventional roads by pure 
ignorance of them; eh, Ugo? If you have no appe- 
tite, talk at least, Ugo ! 

Intcndant. Sir, I can submit no longer to this 
course of yours. First, you select the group of 
which I formed one, — next you thin it gradually, — 
always retaining me with your smile, — and so do 
you proceed till you have fairly got me alone with 
you between four stone walls. And now then? Let 
this farce, this chatter end now : what is it you want 
with me? 

Monsignor. Ugo ! 

Intendant. From the instant you arrived, I felt 
your smile on me as you questioned me about this and 
the other article in those papers — why your brother 
should have given me this villa, that podere, — and 
your nod at the end meant, — what? 

Monsignor. Possibly that I wished for no loud talk 
here. If once you set me coughing, Ugo ! — 

Intendant. I have your brother's hand and seal to 
all I possess: now ask me what for! what service I 
did him — ask me ! 

Monsignor. I would better not : I should rip up 
old disgraces, let out my poor brother's weak- 
nesses. By the way, Maffeo of Forli (which, I 
forgot to observe, is your true name), was the in- 
terdict tver taken off you, for robbing that church at 
Cesena? 

Intendant. No, nor needs be : for when I murdered 
your brother's friend, Pasquale, for him . . . 

Monsignor. Ah, he employed you in that business, 
'lid he? Well, I must let you keep, as you say, this 



PIPPA PASSES. 57 

villa and that podere, for fear the world should find 
out my relations were of so indifferent a stamp? 
Maffeo, my family is the oldest in Messina, and 
century after century have my progenitors gone on 
polluting themselves with every wickedness under 
heaven : my own father . . . rest his soul ! — I have, 
I know, a chapel to support that it may rest: my 
dear two dead brothers were, — what you know tol- 
erably well; I, the youngest, might have rivalled 
them in vice, if not in wealth: but from my boy- 
hood I came out from among them, and so am 
not partaker of their plagues. My glory springs 
from another source; or if from this, by contrast 
only, — for I, the bishop, am the brother of your 
employers, Ugo. I hope to repair some of their 
wrong, however; so far as my brother's ill-gotten 
treasure reverts to me, I can stop the consequences of 
his crime : and not one soldo shall escape me. Maf- 
feo, the sword we quiet men spurn away, you shrewd 
knaves pick up and commit murders with; what op- 
portunities the virtuous forego, the villainous seize. 
Because, to pleasure myself apart from other con- 
siderations, my food would be millet-cake, my dress 
sackcloth, and my couch straw, — am I therefore to 
let you, the offscouring of the earth, seduce the 
poor and ignorant by appropriating a pomp these 
will be sure to think lessens the abominations so un- 
accountably and exclusively associated with it ? Must 
I let villas and poderi go to you, a murderer and thief, 
that you may beget by means of them other murderers 
and thieves? No — if my cough would but allow 
me to speak ! 

Intendant. What am I to expect? You are going 
to punish me? 



58 PIP PA PASSES. 

Monsignor. — Must punish you, Maffeo. I can- 
not afford to cast away a chance. I have whole centu- 
ries of sin to redeem, and only a month or two of life 
to do it in. How should I dare to say . . . 

Intendant. "Forgive us our trespasses"? 

Monsignor. My friend, it is because I avow myself 
a very worm, sinful beyond measure, that I reject 
a line of conduct you would applaud perhaps. Shall 
I proceed, as it were, a-pardoning? — I? — who have 
no symptom of reason to assume that aught less 
than my strenuousest efforts will keep myself out 
of mortal sin, much less keep others out. No : I 
do trespass, but will not double that by allowing 
you to trespass. 

Intendant. And suppose the villas are not your 
brother's to give, nor yours to take? Oh, you are 
hasty enough just now ! 

Monsignor. i, 2 — N° 3! — ay, can you read the 
substance of a letter, N° 3, I have received from 
Rome? It is precisely on the ground there men- 
tioned, of the suspicion I have that a certain child 
of my late elder brother, who would have succeeded 
to his estates, was murdered in infancy by you, 
Maffeo, at the instigation of my late younger brother 
— that the Pontiff enjoins on me not merely the 
bringing that Maffeo to condign punishment, but the 
taking all pains, as guardian of the infant's heri- 
tage for the Church, to recover it parcel by par- 
cel, howsoever, whensoever, and wheresoever. While 
you are now gnawing those fingers, the police are 
engaged in sealing up your papers, Maffeo, and the 
mere raising my voice brings my people from the 
next room to dispose of yourself. 'But I want you 
to confess quietly, and save me raising my voice. 



PIPPA PASSES. 59 

Why, man, do I not know the old story? The heir 
between the succeeding heir, and this heir's ruffianly 
instrument, and their complot's effect, and the life 
of fear and bribes and ominous smiling silence?^ 
Did you throttle or stab my brother's infant? Come 
now ! 

Intendant. So old a story, and tell it' no better? 
When did such an instrument ever produce such an 
effect? Either the child smiles in his face; or, most 
likely, he is not fool enough to put himself in the em- 
ployer's power so thoroughly: the child is always 
ready to produce — as you say — howsoever, whereso- 
ever, and whensoever. 

Monsignor. Liar ! 

Intendant. Strike me? Ah, so might a father 
chastise ! I shall sleep soundly to-night at least, 
though the gallows await me to-morrow ; for what a 
life did I lead ! Carlo of Cesena reminds me of his 
connivance, every time I pay his annuity; which 
happens commonly thrice a year. If I remonstrate, 
he will confess all to the good bishop — you! 

Monsignor. I see through the trick, caitiff! I 
would you spoke truth for once. All shall be sifted, 
however — seven times sifted. 

Intendant. And how my absurd riches encum- 
bered me ! I dared not lay claim to above half 
my possessions. Let me but once unbosom myself, 
glorify Heaven, and die ! 

Sir, you are no brutal dastardly idiot like your 
brother I frightened to death: let us understand 
one another. Sir, I will make away with her for 
you — the girl — here close at hand; not the stupid 
obvious kind of killing; do not speak — know noth- 
ing of her nor of me ! I see her every day — saw 



6o PIP PA PASSES. 

her this morning: of course there is to be no kill- 
ing; but at Rome the courtesans perish off every 
three years, and I can entice her thither — have in- 
deed begun operations already. There 's a certain 
lusty blue-eyed florid-complexioned English knave, 
I and the Police employ occasionally. You assent, 
I perceive — no, that 's not it — assent I do not say 
— but you will let me convert my present havings 
and holdings into cash, and give me time to cross 
the Alps? 'T is but a little black-eyed pretty sing- 
ing Felippa, gay silk-winding girl. I have kept 
her out of harm's way up to this present ; for I 
always intended to make your life a plague to you 
with her. 'T is as well settled once and forever. 
Some women I have procured will pass Bluphocks. 
my handsome scoundrel, off for somebody; and once 
Pippa entangled ! — you conceive ? Through her sing- 
ing? Is it a bargain? 

[From mithout is heard the voice of Pippa, 

singing — 

Overhead the tree-tops meet, 

Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet; 

There was naught above me, naught below, 

My childhood had not learned to know: 

For, what are the voices of birds 

— Ay, and of beasts, — but words, our words, 

Only so much more sweet? 

The knowledge of that with my life begun. 

But I had so near made out the sun, 

And counted your stars, the seven and one, 

Like the Angers of my hand: 

Nay, I could all but understand 

Wherefore through heaven the white moonranges) 



PIPPA PASSES. 6i 

And just when out of her soft £fty changes 
No unfamiliar face might overlook me — 
Suddenly God took me. 

[PippA passes. 
Monsignor [springing up]. My people — one and 
all — all — within there ! Gag this villain — tie him hand 
and foot ! He dares ... I know not half he dares 
— but remove him — quick! Miserere mei, D amine! 
Quick, I say ! 

Scene. — Pippa's chamber again. She enters it. 

The bee with his comb, 

The mouse at her dray, 

The grub in his tomb, 

Wile winter away; 

But the fire-fly and hedge-shrew and lob-worm, I 

pray, 
How fare they? 

Ha, ha, thanks for your counsel, my Zanze ! 
"Feast upon lampreys, quaff Breganze" — 
The summer of life so easy to spend, 
And care for to-morrow so soon put away! 
But winter hastens at summer's end. 
And fire-fly, hedge-shrew, lob-worm, pray, 
How fare they? 

No bidding me then to . . .what did Zanze say? 
"Pare your nails pearlwise, get your small feet shoes 
More like" . . . (what said she?) — "and less like 

canoes !" 
How pert that girl was ! — would I be those pert 
Impudent staring women ! It had done me, 
However, surely no such mighty hurt 
To learn his name who passed that jest upon me: 



62 PIPPA PASSES. 

No foreigner, that I can recollect, 
Came, as she says, a month since, to inspect 
Our silk-mills — none with blue eyes and thick rings 
Of raw-silk-colored hair, at all events. 
Well, if old Luca keep his good intents. 
We shall do better, see what next year brings. 
I may buy shoes, my Zanze, not appear 
More destitute than you perhaps next year ! 
Bluph . . . something ! I had caught the uncouth name 
But for Monsignor's people's sudden clatter 
Above us — bound to spoil such idle chatter 
As ours : it were indeed a serious matter 
If silly talk like ours should put to shame 
The pious man, the man devoid of blame. 
The ... ah but — ah but, all the same. 
No mere mortal has a right 
To carry that exalted air; 
Best people are not angels quite : 
While — not the worst of people's doings scare 
The devil ; so there 's that proud look to spare ! 
Which is mere counsel to myself, mind ! for 
I have just been the holy Monsignor : 
And I was you too, Luigi's gentle mother, 
And you too, Luigi ! — how that Luigi started 
Out of the turret — doubtlessly departed 
On some good errand or another. 
For he passed just now in a traveller's trim. 
And the sullen company that prowled 
About his path, I noticed, scowled 
As if they had lost a prey in him. 
Aod I was Jules the sculptor's bride. 
And I was Ottima beside, 
And now what am I? — tired of fooling. 
Day for folly, night for schooling ! 



PIP PA PASSES. 63 

New Year's day is over and spent, 
111 or well, I must be content. 

Even my lily 's asleep, I vow : 
Wake up — here 's a friend I 've plucked yOUr; 
Call this flower a heart's-ease now ! 
Something lare, let me instruct you, 
Ts this, with petals triply swollen, 
Three times spotted, thrice the pollen; 
While the leaves and parts that witness 
Old proportions and their fitness. 
Here remain unchanged, unmoved now; 
Call this pampered thing improved now! 
Suppose there 's a king of the flowers 
And a girl-show held in his bowers — 
"Look ye, buds, this growth of ours," 
Says he, "Zanze from the Brenta, 
I have made her gorge polenta 
Till both cheeks are near as bouncing 
As her . . . name there 's no pronouncing I 
See this heightened color too, 
For she swilled Breganze wine 
Till her nose turned deep carmine; 
'T was but white when wild she grew. 
And only by this Zanze's eyes 
Of which we could not change the size, 
The magnitude of all achieved 
Otherwise, may be perceived." 

Oh what a drear dark close to my poor day I 
How could that red sun drop in that black cloiidll 
Ah Pippa, morning's rule is moved away, 
Dispensed with, never more to be allowed ! 
Day's turn is over, now arrives the night's. 
Oh lark, be day's apostle 



64 PIPPA PASSES. 

To mavis, merle and throstle, 

Bid them their betters jostle 

From day and its delights ! 

But at night, brother howlet, over the woods, 

Toll the world to thy chantry ; 

Sing to the bats' sleek sisterhoods 

Full complines with gallantry : 

Then, owls and bats. 

Cowls and twats. 

Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods, 

Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry! 

[After she has begun to undress herself. 
Now, one thing I should like to really know : 
How near I ever might approach all the.:e 
I only fancied being, this long day : 
— Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, so 
As to ... in some way . . . move them — if you 

please, 
Do good or evil to them some slight way. 
For instance, if I wind 
Silk to-morrow, my silk may bind 

[Sitting on the bedside. 
And border Ottima's cloak's hem. 
Ah me, and my important part with them, 
This morning's hymn half promised when I rose ! 
True in some sense or other, I suppose. 

[As she lies down. 
God bless me ! I can pray no more to-night. 
No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right. 

All service ranks the same with God — 
With God, whose puppets, best and worst, 
Are we: there is no last nor first. 

[She sleeps. 



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